Foreign News: Crusade

"The war is a crusade," postulated Jean Cardinal Verdier, Archbishop of
Paris, last week. "We are struggling to preserve the freedom of people
throughout the world, whether they be great or small peoples, and to
preserve their possessions and their very lives. No other war has had
aims that are more spiritual, moral, and, in sum, more Christian."

It is several centuries too late for Pius XII to proclaim officially a
crusade, but His Holiness gave every sign last week of finding the
metaphor chosen by Cardinal Verdier felicitous. With joy the French
primate received a letter entirely in the handwriting of...